Why this project
Receiving aircraft broadcasts with a small SDR makes a useful systems-integration problem: physical RF equipment, stream decoding, a local data collector, a structured database, and a browsable map.
What the public repository documents
The Sideband Watchtower repository describes SBS/BaseStation-format aircraft data ingestion, SQLite storage for aircraft/events, and a FastAPI dashboard with a Leaflet map and aircraft detail views. It explicitly labels the current work an early prototype undergoing reproducibility improvements.
Architecture and separation of responsibilities
An RTL-SDR receiver and ADS-B decoder provide the stream. The collector normalizes sightings and writes records. The dashboard/API exposes current data locally. This pipeline can be operated without publishing the receiver location or private account information.
Artemis integration roadmap
A future bridge will combine Watchtower aircraft data with National Weather Service alerts, traffic/incident feeds, and user travel plans. Deterministic rules can decide which events matter; Artemis can summarize those results and send a private Discord briefing.
Honest technical limits
ADS-B does not reveal road congestion. Commute ETAs require separate traffic-aware routing; incident reports and official weather alerts require their own data feeds. These integrations are planned, not deployed here.